G’day Gorgeous…

I thought I might talk to you about this little thing I’ve beenworking on with regards to my new book. I am writing a new book called “TheTrouble With Trauma”. I’m doing a lot ofwriting in my head no yet getting it actually down on paper, but what’s interesting is that I’ve beenformulating and working through the premise of the book, which ultimately isaround what is ‘trauma’ and why trauma is such a big problem for all of us.

In essence, our primary emotional need as humanbeings is for ‘connection’ – me to you and you to everybody around you. The connection is what we all need it as humanbeings, in fact, it’s absolutely essentialto our survival.

The basis of traumais, in essence, a disconnection. So whydo we have traumatic events in our lives?It is because we have a disconnect. Myprimary explanation for whyall of this comes together,why trauma is so important tounderstand, is because of our very firstexperience of a trauma, the first that we actuallyrecall and remember and we canmake an attribution and blame ourselves for, is usually from when you are about four years old. Yourfirst experience is actually anabandonment and our first experience of it is before we start primary school.

How do Iknow that it’s at four? Well, as human beings we have a reallyinteresting experience from when we are born. Whenyou are born your primaryemotional needs are met by your primary caregiver, so your Mm or whoever was looked after you asa baby. Your needs arealways met, you’re fed, you’re clothed,you’ve got a roof over your head. Then at around the 18-month mark, when the kids start to say ‘No!’, they are starting tolearn about language and what’simportant, and they notice the reactionthat they get when they say ‘No!’ but then ataround 2 we develop ‘desire’ – very different to ‘need’ – so what’s thebig deal about desire?

The importanceof desire is that as a two-year-old, I’m throwing a tantrumand it’s because instead of having a need for food that I want met, I’ve suddenly nowgot a desire for something else, but Idon’t have language so I can’tcommunicate that desire to my Mum just in mybrain. Yet, I think that my primary caregiverknows exactly what I’m thinking becauseeverything up until that point the mother intuitively ‘knows’ what the childneeds. When ‘need’ changes to ‘desire’, I’m looking to myparent to give me what I want and Idon’t necessarily get it!

Now, there is arange of reasons why I don’t get it, but whydo I throw tantrums? It’s because I don’t havea language to communicate what I desire,and I’m usually not getting what it isthat I want, so in frustration, I throw a tantrum!

From there, we kind of geton with it. As we develop more language,we get more awareness, but we still think that our parent can understand what’sgoing on in our head. In fact, we thinkthat all of the adults around us canread our minds!

What I really love isthat moment when we know that children get full individuation. Childrenwill usually be able to look in themirror and say theirname, like maybe at age one or two. They can point in themirror and say “Kerry” (in my case) theyknow that’s the name that theygive that baby or that person that they see in the mirror. However, there’s anargument that says they don’t actuallyrealise that that baby is themselves, that they understand that they arean individual because at that point, they still seethemselves as an extension of the parent…Until age four.

Atfour, they work out that they can knowthings, or that little voice inside theirhead knows things, that their parentdoesn’t know. When they’ve reached that point of true individuation, that’s the point whenyou recognise that they actually knowthat they are an individual and that whatthey think inside their head, theirparent cannot know unless they expressit. You know that it happens because a four-year-old will come to you and say “I’ve got a secret!” They are truly and individual from this point on, and with individuation comes responsibility.

What’s funny is, soon after thatthey learn to tell lies. Why is thatimportant? Because from that point youunderstand that the things that happento you, happen because you impact them. So,what do we know about children up untilabout the age of 10 or 12? They haveconcrete thinking… Good things happen toyou because you are good and bad things because you are bad – simple as that, black and white!

You may be aware of when it happened toyou at four. You will have had a moment afteryou recognised that you were anindividual, where you felt an abandonmentor a disconnection from your primarycaregivers. At this point, you reasoned to yourself that it was yourfault. Why is that important? Because thisis the child part that, later on, youwill tap back into when you are feelingrejected.

I’ll explain that in the coming few videos as I’m going to have tomake this into a series to fully explain the overall concept. It becomes six parts 😀